Alliance leader Naomi Long launched a scathing attack on two high profile unionists after they tweeted a satirical cartoon penned in the wake of the Kingsmill loaf row.

The MLA accused Christopher Stalford and Doug Beattie of using the image, by artist Brian John Spencer, “to score political points”. The image shows a bullet-ridden van, clearly meant to be the vehicle the Kingsmill victims were in, and a number of red streams of blood pouring from it.

It is captioned ‘Sinn Fein’s red lines’ and also features an image of a man who is clearly Gerry Adams with a word bubble coming from his mouth containing the phrase ‘equality’.

South Belfast DUP MLA, Mr Stalford tweeted the image with the words: “Sinn Fein: offended by everything and ashamed of nothing.”

Upper Bann UUP MLA Doug Beattie retweeted the image and when challenged by one person on Twitter replied: “Satire has been about for many years - the whole point is to challenge. I believe it highlights the issues very well. If one of the family challenge me for RTing it I will address that challenge”.

Christopher Stalford took a similar stance, tweeting: “If a single person connected with the event asks me to remove it I will do so in an instant, but I will not be deleting anything, least of all (and this obviously doesn’t refer to you) at the behest of the Sinn Fein Twitter mob.”

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The online spat saw a large number of Twitter users get involved with scores of tweets exchanged.

But Mrs Long called for the image to be removed.

She added: “Given the hurt caused by this past weekend’s events relating to Kingsmill, senior political representatives sharing this image on social media cannot have been unaware of the impact their actions would have. I would call on both Christopher Stalford and Doug Beattie to remove the post and apologise for using what was an obscene atrocity to score political points. It is irresponsible, inflammatory and insulting behaviour which is unbecoming of their role.

“Artists, of course, have a right to freedom of expression, and will often use images which are provocative or even grotesque in order to make their point. However, we are not artists, comedians, or satirists, we are supposed to be politicians. Our role in society is not to play the provocateur, we have a duty to show restraint and leadership and should carefully consider the impact of our words and actions on the community and the political process, and never more than when it comes to dealing with our painful and bloody past.”